Adam Johnson MED ’18

My name is Adam Johnson and I am a 4th year medical school student atajheadshot
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. On December 28th, 1988 my
mother, Marilyn Johnson, was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. On December 29th, 1988 my father wrote a letter to my mom stating that
she would have a son named Adam. After the chemotherapy, radiation and
mastectomy, in 1990 she discovered she was pregnant. One of her
oncologist suggested she have an abortion because the pregnancy would
increase the rate at which the cancer would recur. She chose to
continue the pregnancy and on June 28th, 1991 I was born, ironically
enough, my astrological sign being a “cancer.” Unfortunately, the
cancer recurred in 2001 and in 2011 my mom passed secondary to a
myriad of health complications. In the same way that my mom, CHOSE the
scarier option, I honor her decision as I have chosen to pursue a
career in surgery while educating and inspiring the next generation of
physicians.
I had the privilege of working with the Boston Area Health Education
Center (BAHEC) under the Boston Public Health Commission. With this
opportunity, I created the Summer Medical Exposure Bootcamp (SMEB) for
underrepresented minority high school students from Boston. Over the
course of 6 weeks, students were exposed to medical topics including
neurology, obstetrics, gynecology, internal medicine, radiology,
emergency medicine and surgery. Each week the students were lectured
by physicians from Boston Medical Center (BMC) and participated in
hands on activities including physical exam skills, holding an actual
brain, laparoscopic skills workshop in the Solomon Center and a
suturing workshop led by two BMC surgical residents